After the Battle
by nickyjay
Summary: Amended to retrofit in with my next fanfic because there were one or two conflicts, this covers the few hours immediately after the battle with Viktor.
1. After the Battle

**After the ****Battle******

**Author's note:  **I have amended a couple of paragraphs on 6th May 04 to fit in with my subsequent fanfic, The Beginning of Forever.  Nothing like retrofitting the storyline, but that's how the muse works sometimes. 

Selene and Michael stared at each other, both wearing expressions of shocked disbelief.  How could it be over?  How had they survived?  Selene realized then that she'd half expected she wouldn't live through this night.  She'd never expected Michael to live through it.  But they had, and everything she'd ever known about herself, about the war, her reason for living…all of it had been swept away.  They stood in a moment of change so profound that she could barely grasp even a fraction of its impact.  

Part of that change was Michael and the creature that he had become, half lycan, half vampire, and something completely new in itself.  She was still awed by what she had seen.  How Michael, less than an hour Changed, had almost overcome one of the Elders single-handed.  Now she could understand why Viktor had been so afraid of the union of lycan and vampire, why the Elders had created the Covenant and fought to maintain it for so many centuries.  The whole was most definitely greater than the sum of its parts. 

It wasn't the creature staring back at her now but the human.  He had that look in his eyes that she was beginning to recognize, searching, trusting, although she'd never understood why he'd trusted her.  Or why she'd trusted him, believed even when she'd known that he was becoming a lycan, her mortal enemy, that he meant her no harm.  He was an innocent in this war and always had been.  She had been the same once herself and had had that innocence perverted for the amusement of the vampire Elders.  Her life made no sense anymore.  Michael was the only thing that she had left to believe in.  

They needed to get out of here.  Viktor's death might keep the vampires at bay for a time, but there was no telling how long it would be before they overcame their caution and came looking for the ones who had killed him.  No-one could hold a grudge like a vampire, and she and Michael had just designated themselves their primary enemy.  Despite Lucien's sacrifice to help her and Michael against Kraven, Selene could not bring herself to trust the lycans.  Not just yet.  They needed time to rest and regroup, to figure out what to do next, and who to trust, if anybody.

Almost as though sensing her thoughts, Michael turned towards the tunnels.  Selene followed, then moved ahead of him.  For all that he had more strength and speed than any vampire or lycan, it was she who had centuries of experience at surviving in the middle of enemy territory.  He made no protest and followed after her in silence, something she was immensely grateful for.  She had no idea what to say to him.  Her own thoughts were a turmoil, and images of the battle kept playing themselves through her mind.  Viktor's face, Lucien's, Kraven pulling the trigger, pumping bullets into Michael's chest. The taste of Michael's blood and the last look of shock on Viktor's face before he died.

Selene stopped dead in her tracks so unexpectedly that Michael almost walked into her.  He glanced ahead, instantly wary, asking in a low voice, "What is it?"

They were at a split in the tunnel.  Selene stared one way, then the other, not moving. "I…I don't know where to go," she said, her voice filled with an unfamiliar uncertainty.  

Shocked, Michael realized that he'd just been blindly assuming that she would know what to do.  She always seemed so sure of herself, and he had been relying on her to do the thinking for him yet again, almost forgetting that she had been through something as profoundly terrifying as he had this night.  With a surge of guilt, Michael admitted that he had been so absorbed in what was happening to him and in surviving long enough to see her again that it hadn't even occurred to him to wonder how she was dealing with it. Against all reason she had helped him, risked her life for him and disregarded everything she'd ever believed to be right and true in her world to do so.  Not only that, but she had known what the consequences of her actions would be.  In many ways, her loss was greater than his.  That she had held together as long as she had was testament to a depth of courage he was only beginning to grasp.  _You have got to help her, _he told himself._ You owe her your life.  Do whatever it takes to make sure that she is alright_.

"We need to find somewhere safe," he said, thinking aloud.  "Somewhere where we can hole up for a day or two where they won't come looking for us."

"We need rest and food," Selene murmured.  She glanced over her shoulder at him, and he thought he saw gratitude in her eyes.  "I think we will have a day or two's grace before they come looking for us.  They need to recuperate as much as we do.  But they will come looking for us, so we're going to need weapons and supplies.  I think it would be best if we got out of the city."

"Can we go back to my apartment?" He asked.  She frowned and looked at him doubtfully.  Michael gestured at his state of undress.  Only the jeans had survived the fight, and they were looking much the worse for wear.  "I need clothes.  And I have some money there."

Selene nodded, seeing the wisdom of this.  _Money_, she thought, suddenly realizing how much she had taken for granted in her old life.  Money had never been an issue, but if they were out on their own it was quickly going to become one.  Like food.  At the mansion, there had never been any shortage of supplies.  But now they were going to have to fend for themselves any way they could.  She felt a sudden surge of purpose and glanced at the watch on her wrist.  Three hours before sunrise.  They had time.  

"This way," she said, and took the left-hand tunnel.

Michael followed a few steps behind her, his expression somber as he watched her walking ahead of him through the darkness.  He had seen the look on her face, that absolute focus that he'd already come to know well.  She was thinking again, taking care of the immediate concerns that would keep them alive.  But he was familiar with shock and grief, and he knew that there would be a time when all that had happened this night would suddenly come crashing in on her.  Probably the first time she gave herself a chance to rest.  Although she knew better than he how to guard against all the physical dangers they were likely to face, there were other, more insidious ones, dangers of the heart and mind tortured by betrayal and loss.  Dangers he had faced before.  _I will be there for you, Selene_, he vowed. _ For you as long as you need me. I will never betray the trust you have shown me_.  But he felt a cold chill of fear in his gut, and knew that the real battle had only just begun.  


	2. After the Battle part 2

**After the ****Battle**** – Part 2**

Michael followed Selene up into the night, running after her down dark streets and through alleyways, wrestling with a ridiculous embarrassment at the fact that all he had on him was a pair of worse-for-wear jeans.  He had never been one for exhibitionism, although he knew he didn't look half bad without his clothes on, and he really hoped that Selene was taking him back to his apartment by the quickest route possible.  _If anyone I know could see me now_…he thought, squirming inside, and then had a sudden, sobering thought.  If anyone he knew did see him right now it would probably sign their death warrant.  Either the vampires or the lycans who would shortly be hunting him would kill a human for that information.  Michael started hoping that nobody he knew would see him for a completely different reason.

As he ran, he began to notice things about this strange new body he'd somehow acquired.  For one, although it was the middle of a late October night and raining, he didn't feel the cold.  Or he felt it, but it simply didn't bother him.  And his eyesight.  He could see as clearly as though it were daylight, although the cold light of the moon washed all color from the world.  Edges were sharp, shadows had texture and depth that he didn't remember them having before.  Sounds he was so used to that he'd stopped hearing them years ago were suddenly new and painful.  Cars screeched and roared, water rushed and hissed, pigeons they startled as they ran across a rooftop fled into flight with a sound like thunder, scaring him almost as much as he had scared them.  And it was so easy to move!  The strength flowed through him, heady and powerful, making him want to test it, to run and leap and climb.  Selene kept up an inhuman pace, one he would never have been able to follow only a couple of days ago, but now he almost wished she'd go faster.  His medical training noted the steady beat of his heart, the ease with which he breathed and how the muscles – abused so recently in the beating he'd taken from Viktor – worked tirelessly without any sign of flagging.  He felt exhilarated and a little frightened.  That this new body had its limits he already knew from his battle with the vampire elder, but he was starting to realize that those limits might have been largely in his mind.  _Given a little time, a little training, what could I do?  What could I become?_  

Now the streets were starting to become familiar.  Michael looked around, noting the  subtleties his heightened senses revealed to him that added a whole new dimension to familiar territory.  Smells he'd never really noticed before and couldn't identify yet, sounds and sights he'd barely paid attention to that now seemed bright and new and urgent.  He wanted to slow down and explore the changes to his world, but there was no time for that now.  They were here out of necessity only, and they must leave as soon as they could or risk being found.  Michael felt a quick rush of regret, the precursor to a darker fear, that of leaving behind everything and everyone he'd ever known.  Ruthlessly he pushed that fear out of his mind.  _Later,_ he told himself.  _I'll think about that later.  Right now, staying alive long enough to have regrets would be pretty miraculous._

They paused on the rooftop opposite his apartment block, Selene crouched on the edge like a cat, looking this way and that for signs of the enemy.  Michael hung back a little, watching her and conscious that despite his newfound senses, he wasn't much use to her.  He didn't understand half of what he could smell or hear and if there were vampires or lycans waiting for them, he would probably be dead before he knew about it.  She was so still, poised on the edge of the roof as though she was about to step off a curb, not drop five stories onto concrete.  Michael glanced down at the street below and quickly looked away again as a rush of vertigo twisted his gut.  He wondered how long it would take for him to become used to the fact that he could leap such distances and land on his feet, unharmed.  He wondered how long it had taken her.

She glanced back at him and nodded once, then disappeared off the edge of the roof.  Michael's heart leapt into his throat and he hurled himself forward, looking over to find her straightening up from a crouch with her usual animal grace.  She looked up and gestured impatiently for him follow, then turned and marched across the street.  He sagged against the cold concrete in relief and muttered, "Idiot," to himself before taking a deep breath and following her.

He was still marveling at his lack of broken bones when they reached his apartment.  The door was busted and there was yellow crime scene tape across it.  _What crime did they think had happened here?_  Michael asked himself as he followed Selene inside.  He wondered what on earth the neighbors would have made of the snarls and howls they had heard the night the lycans had tried to kidnap him.  The night he had first met Selene, and she had saved his life more than once by the end of it, he realized.  Michael stood in the middle of his apartment and looked around, amazed to find it so little changed.  How could it look the same when he was so completely different, when the world he knew had changed so completely?

"Michael?"  Selene's voice broke his reverie.

"Hmm?" He asked vaguely.

"Clothes," she prompted.  "And money.  Do you have a gun?"

He blinked.  "Uh, no.  No gun."  But he looked around again with purpose.  "I've got to change," he muttered, and headed for the bedroom.

Selene watched him go with a frown.  He looked dazed, punch drunk, which was not surprising really.  Even she was feeling a strange kind of numbness after this night's events.  With dull amazement she realized that she hadn't been this affected by a battle in a century.  She had become so inured to the blood and the violence that it had become meaningless, except as a way of marking the progress of the war.  _It took the death of my sire to shake me out of it,_ she thought.  _No, it took Michael.  First a human, then a lycan, and now…._  Selene drew in a quick breath at an unexpected twist of terror inside her. _ What have I done?_

"Selene?"

Her expression froze and she turned her head to see him standing in the doorway with a duffel bag in one hand and a frown on his face.  He was dressed again in a clean pair of jeans, a new shirt and a hooded jacket, and had found a pair of sneakers.  

"Do you need any clothes?" He asked awkwardly.  "I mean, nothing I have'll fit you, but I've got a couple of shirts if you need them.  Until you can get yourself something else, anyway."

Her throat was dry and her heart was beating way too fast.  She swallowed and shook her head, not trusting her voice.  Michael looked at her with that peculiar way he had, as though he was looking right into her.

"Selene, are you alright?" he asked, taking a step into the room, his voice filled with concern.

Terrified that he would come closer and see the fear, she faced him squarely and said, "I'm fine," in a hard voice.  "We'd better go.  Do you have what you need?"

"Just one more thing," he said, and went past her to the desk below the window.  The drawer was open and for a moment he stared at it in confusion, as though surprised to find it so.  He rifled quickly through the contents.  When he didn't find what he was looking for, he started a frantic search of the desktop and the other drawers before he suddenly spotted something on the floor.  He knelt down to gather a handful of scattered photographs.  Selene watched him, feeling suddenly guilty with the knowledge that she had left been the one to leave them lying there, casually discarded.

"You might as well leave them," she said more harshly than she'd intended.  "You can't go back."

His hands stilled for a moment, and he looked down at what he held.  Selene could see that the top photograph was the picture of him and Samantha, the woman who had been his fiancé before her tragic death.  Her death had brought him here to this city to face his destiny.  Or his doom, depending on which way you looked at it.  

"If I leave them here, the lycans or the vampires might find them," he said quietly.  "I don't want them to have them."

She could understand that.  And she could understand the other reason, the need to hold on to what it was that made him human and connected him to his past.  She felt a quick pang of regret at the thought of the one faded picture she had of her own family, now beyond retrieval in the vampire mansion.  That and her memories were all she'd had of them.  Now all she had were the memories.

"Lets go," she said, and strode out of the room.  Michael stuffed the pictures in his jacket pocket and followed, closing the door quietly behind him.

He had to jog a few steps to catch up with her she was moving so quickly down the corridor.  Michael could sense that something was wrong, but he didn't know how to broach the subject with her.  He didn't know if he should anyway, they were still on the run and Selene needed to stay focused if they were both to make it through the next day.  He decided not to say anything just yet, restricting his questions to, "Where are we going now?"

"We have to pick up some supplies," she said over her shoulder as they went down the stairs, Selene peering over the rails to check the lower levels for intruders.  "We need weapons, ammunition, blood."  She glanced back at him briefly.  "Then we have to find shelter for the day.  It's just over an hour until sunrise."

_Oh yeah_, Michael thought.  He'd forgotten.  An image rose unbidden in his mind, of Lucien's lover, Sonja, screaming as the sun stripped the flesh from her bones.  He shuddered, and wondered if he would suffer something of the vampire's fate with the sunrise.  Lycans could tolerate sunlight, he knew that, but he was half vampire.  Did Selene know how he would be affected?  Did the lycans?  He could recall nothing from Lucien's memories of a creature such as himself ever having lived.  The only hybrid Lucien had known of – and Michael's mind flinched from the pain the memory held – had been the child within Sonja's womb.  It had died with her when Viktor had killed his only daughter for consorting with a lycan.  

Michael nearly stumbled as he suddenly made the connection.  Viktor had killed Sonja for the child she carried, just as he'd tried to kill Selene for helping Michael.  Lucien had been trying to remake himself as the beast Michael had become in order to fight Viktor.  Michael's blood would have made that possible.  He remembered Selene telling him that no-one had ever survived a bite from both a vampire and a lycan; no-one, that is, until him.  Why had he survived the bite of both species when few enough humans survived the bite of one?  His specialty was not viruses such as the ones the lycans and the vampires carried, but it occurred to him that he could now be carrying a mutated strain that would be lethal to both vampires and lycans.  _But how did they know my blood was the key? _ He wondered.  _The lycans went to so much effort to find me, and the vampires to try to kill me.  What did Lucien think he would become?  What did Viktor fear enough to kill his own daughter to prevent?_

They were out in the city again, which was darker now that the moon had set.  In the small hours before dawn a stillness had descended, making their presence that much more conspicuous.  Selene was moving more cautiously now, and Michael could feel the tension radiating off her.  She was afraid, he knew that, but Michael dared not interrupt her concentration to ask her any of the questions that were crowding his mind. 

She led him to a deserted building, quickly scaling up the fire escape to the top floor and in through a window – shut, but not for long – into a room that Michael immediately recognized.  It was another interrogation room, not unlike the one Selene had taken him to before.  He looked around in distaste at the implements of torture, the chair with its chains and the table covered with dried blood.  He could smell the fear in the place, it coated the back of his throat and made the hair on his neck rise.

Selene was opening the safe, taking out guns, ammunition, and a couple of weapons which Michael could not identify that looked as though they were designed for close-quarter combat, all of which she dumped in a pile on the table.  When she'd cleared out the safe, she turned her attention to some of the weapons that had been left discarded on a tray beside the table, picking out some lethal-looking throwing stars and pocketing them.  She then checked the guns, making sure they were loaded.  As she worked she glanced at Michael. 

"Look in that corner over there," she instructed.  "You'll find a cooler box.  There's a fridge underneath the counter.  Put some ice packs and the blood in the cooler box."

Michael did what she asked, although he still couldn't believe himself that he'd actually want to drink blood.  He stared at it and wrinkled his nose a little, disconcerted with the thought of the demands his body might now make on him, demands that he was not sure he was comfortable with.  Would he want to hunt and kill and feed?  Would he be able to control it if he did?  The thought that he might be dangerous to people hit him hard, and he packed the blood away carefully, wondering where they were going to be able to get more when they needed it.  He clenched his jaw, vowing to himself then that there would be no time when he would be that hungry or that crazed with bloodlust that he would ever resort to killing people.  

When they left that place it was by the roof, and with the sky in the east starting to turn deeper indigo with the coming sunrise.  Michael suggested that they try one of the motels in the seedier part of town, somewhere where their early arrival would cause little or no comment.  They were close enough now to be there before the sun.  Selene agreed, and they ran across the rooftops in the grey light of the coming dawn, Michael easily keeping pace with her even if he made the jumps with less grace.  

They found a room somewhere where the clerk behind the counter barely made eye contact, and made it inside before the sun had risen over the city.  Selene pulled the curtains shut, and then she and Michael stood staring at each other over the double bed.  Michael, who was not feeling the least bit tired, smiled a little awkwardly and said, "I'll keep watch if you want."

Selene blinked and realized that she hadn't even thought of that.  Her mind had been chasing itself around in circles ever since they'd left Michael's apartment.  She was exhausted, more so than she cared to admit.  It wasn't physical – she'd been on hunts which had lasted several nights before now – but a bone-deep weariness that stemmed from too much of her life being suddenly wrenched off center.  Even as she longed to curl up on the bed, close her eyes and not wake up until they needed to leave this place, she was terrified that as soon as she did, all that had happened last night would replay itself in her mind.  She really did not want to face that right now.

"We need to talk," she said instead, and sat down on the edge of the bed.  

Michael looked a little surprised, but nodded and said, "OK."  He pulled over the one chair in the room and turned it so that he could sit astride, leaning his arms on the back as he faced her.  "What about?"

"I think it would be best if we left the city as soon as possible.  There are too many vampires in this town, and they know you and me by sight. We're never going to be able to dodge all of them.  If we stay on the move for the next couple of weeks at least, we should be able to keep clear of them."

Michael nodded cautiously, although she knew he had little grasp of the dangers that they faced.  "Where are we going?" he asked.

"I think Prague first.  After that, Berlin, Paris, then I'd like to try and make it across the channel."

Michael's eyebrows rose.  "To England?" he asked.

She nodded.  "London, more specifically.  Big cities are easier to hide in, and from London we can get anywhere in the world if we have to.  Also, I know the city.  I spent the last thirty years before the millennium there running one of the Death Dealer covens."  

Michael stared at her, disconcerted to be reminded that she was so much older than her preternaturally enhanced looks would suggest.  "How old are you?" he asked abruptly.  At Selene's surprised look, he shook his head, embarrassed. "I'm sorry, forget I asked."

"No, it's alright," she told him.  "I was born in 1782.  Born as a human, that is.  I was twenty-four when Viktor-" and suddenly she choked off, surprised by a surge of rage and despair she hadn't expected.

"When the lycans killed your family," Michael said softly.  

Selene stared at him, stricken, and realized that he didn't know.  He had been lying on the floor twisting in agony with silver nitrate running through his veins when Kraven had shattered her world with the knowledge that Viktor had been the one who had killed her human family.  And when she had confronted Viktor with that knowledge, Michael had been suffering through a very different kind of agony in the adjacent chamber as his body mutated into that of the beast.  Slowly, she shook her head, took in a steadying breath, and said deliberately, "The lycans didn't kill my family.  Viktor did."

Michael said nothing, just looked at her with wide-eyed horror.  So she repeated it, and told him what she was slowly coming to realize herself.  "Viktor killed my family.  And then he turned me into the thing that had killed my family, and told me that the lycans had done it so that he could send me out to kill them for him.  I wanted vengeance, so I did what he asked without question.  I've killed hundreds, possibly thousands of lycans, believing that I was doing the right thing by ridding the world of savage monsters that preyed on the innocent."  Selene stared blankly into space, and a cold, self-mocking smile touched her mouth.  "Viktor lied to me.  I trusted him, believed in him and in the war.  I had no other purpose but to fight and kill lycans.  The life I have lived, the war I fought for him, all of it has been a lie."

"Christ," Michael breathed.  "Selene-" he broke off, then muttered, "Christ," again under his breath. She blinked like someone coming out of sleep, and looked at him with such a desolate expression that it tore at his heart.  He got up out of the chair and went to sit beside her on the bed, taking one of her hands in his.  It was icy cold, and although he knew by now that her body was not warm like a human's, he was sure that she shouldn't be this cold.  Once again he could feel tension radiating from her, only this time they were not out on the streets running for their lives.  "How did you find out?" he asked.

"Kraven told me.  After he shot you," she said.  "And when I confronted Viktor, he didn't bother trying to deny it.  I think," she paused, a slight frown creasing her brow.  "I think he actually believed that he was doing me a favor by making me into a vampire.  He thought that I should be grateful."

Michael closed his eyes for a second and felt a deep rage somewhere within him.  The depth of this betrayal was something he could do little more than imagine.  _If Selene had not killed you…._He thought to Viktor.  _For you, I hope that hell exists._  Then he opened his eyes. "I need to tell you what started the war," he said quietly, and began to explain what Lucien's memories had revealed to him.  

He told the whole story, including what Lucien had told him of the pact that made lycans the vampires' slaves and guardians in exchange for shelter and safety from the religious fervor of the times.  He told how Lucien had fallen in love with the vampire princess, Viktor's daughter, and of their secret marriage in defiance of the Covenant.  Selene remained silent as he spoke, watching him, her hands lying quiet in his grasp.  As some point he realized that she was crying, but when he tried to stop she shook her head and insisted he finish.  When he explained why it was that he thought Viktor had killed his daughter, her eyes widened in horror.  He stopped then, watching Selene carefully, afraid that this was going to be too much.  The war which had been her reason for living, that she'd believed had been started by the lycans, existed because of Viktor's personal vendetta against them.  There was no grand purpose, no great service the Death Dealers were performing for mankind.  All that was left were the lies and the hate.  

She was so still for so long, her face devoid of expression, that Michael became frightened, thinking she'd gone into shock.  Not knowing if it was the right thing to do, he took her into his arms and held her.  Her body was as stiff as a board, but she didn't try to pull away.  After a time he tried to get her to lie down and rest, but when he started to get up so that he could sit watch she held on to his hands, silently begging him not to let her go.  He lay down on the bed and pulled her back against him, trying to warm her cold body with his and whispering the kind of stupid, meaningless comfort words people did at times like these. A long while later he felt her body gradually relax, and he realized that she had gone to sleep.  

He stayed awake through that day and kept watch over her, again making his silent vow that he would be with her for as long as she needed him to be.  On the heels of that thought came a colder one – he had nowhere else to go.  


End file.
